UConn, UAlbany Collaborating On New Weather and Climate Center

STORRS, CT — A new, state-of-the-art weather and climate facility led by researchers at the University of Connecticut and the University at Albany is being billed as something that could "help safeguard the energy industry."

Backed by a grant from the National Science Foundation, the Center for Weather
Innovation and Smart Energy and Resilience is an Industry/University Cooperative
Research Center, UConn officials said.

IUCRCs are designed to help corporate partners and government agencies connect directly and efficiently with university researchers to conduct high-impact research, drive innovative technology development, and develop a high-tech, skilled work force, UConn officials said.

WISER aims to leverage the research and expertise at UConn and UAlbany to create advanced
weather- and climate-based solutions for the energy industry, now and in the future.

Chris Thorncroft, the director of UAlbany’s Atmospheric Sciences Research Center and Emmanouil and Manos Anagnostou, the director of UConn’s Eversource Energy Center, are leading WISER for their respective universities.

"We envision WISER to become a leading energy industry-academia partnership, advancing
research and cutting-edge technologies to continually improve power grid efficiency and
reliability in the face of a changing climate and transition to clean energy," said Anagnostou, a
Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor and Eversource Energy Endowed Chair in
Environmental Engineering at UConn.

"The IUCRC program was created by the NSF to generate new and innovative research through
engagement between academic researchers, government agencies and industry partners," said
Thorncroft, who also directs UAlbany’s Center of Excellence in Weather and Climate Analytics and the New York State Mesonet. “WISER will fulfill this mission by advancing research and cutting-edge technologies to improve energy industry efficiency and reliability in the face of a rapidly changing climate and global transition to clean energy sources."

WISER's research direction will focus on renewable energy (solar, hydro, and wind), power
outage management, electrical grid resilience brought on by extreme weather, and ways
climate change impacts power producers and power distributors.

To date, 14 companies including IBM, Eversource, the National Grid, and Avangrid have elected to
join WISER as industry partners.

The WISER research team includes 13 faculty from UAlbany's Atmospheric Sciences Research Center, Department of Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences and College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security and Cybersecurity and 16 faculty from UConn’s School of Engineering, School of Business, and the College of Agriculture, Health, and Natural Resources. Anagnostou and Thorncroft welcome additional industries and faculty to join WISER and collaborate on projects and share ideas.

WISER also will recruit graduate and undergraduate students from underrepresented groups to
increase minority participation in science and engineering and especially interdisciplinary
collaborations and exposure to industry-academia partnerships.

"We're thrilled to be the NSF’s latest IUCRC and look forward to working with our industry
partners on innovating predictive systems and technologies for clean energy,” Anagnostou said.
“We aim for a more reliable electric grid in the face of climate change, all while working toward
a greener future.”
The launch of WISER will add to UAlbany and UConn’s growing research relationship at the
intersection between weather, climate, and the energy industry. Last fall, New York State
Electric & Gas and Rochester Gas & Electric announced plans for a new partnership with the two institutions to develop a customizable outage prediction system that can enhance storm
preparedness and response efforts for utility companies.

The new center will be supported by a $750,000 NSF grant for each institution and a five-year,
$3.7 million industry partnership membership fee. The NSF also awarded WISER with a $20,000
grant in 2022 that was used to host a WISER planning meeting at UAlbany with energy industry
executives.

WISER is UConn’s fourth IUCRC to be funded by the NSF. The others include the Center for
Novel High Voltage/Temperature Materials and Structures the Center for Hardware and
Embedded System Security and Trust , and the Center for Science of Heterogenous
Additive Printing of 3D Materials.